Republicans Jeff Sessions and Paul Ryan and Democrats Patty Murray and Chris Van Hollen are leading a bipartisan group of lawmakers who are trying to forge a budget agreement to fund the government for 2014.

(CNN) - Sen. Ted Cruz was greeted by a screaming crowd of supporters and cheers of "Thank you Ted!" and "Welcome Home!" Monday night in Texas.

The freshman senator said he was happy to be back home in Houston, and wasn't afraid to be honest about his feelings on Washington.

"It is terrific to be back in America," said Cruz as supporters waved homemade signs promoting "#MakeDCListen," a hashtag that was a prominent part of Cruz's 21-hour speech on the Senate floor in late September.

Just more than half the public says that it's bad for the country that the GOP controls the House of Representatives, according to a new national poll conducted after the end of the partial government shutdown.

And the CNN/ORC International survey also indicates that more than six in 10 Americans say that Speaker of the House John Boehner should be replaced.

The poll was conducted Friday through Sunday, just after the end of the 16-day partial federal government shutdown that was caused in part by a push by House conservatives to try and dismantle the health care law, which is President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement.

(CNN) - Back in his home state after the reopening of the government, Sen. Ted Cruz didn’t rule out the idea of again staging the strategy that helped lead to the 16-day partial shutdown and bashed his fellow Senate Republicans for not trying hard enough to dismantle Obamacare.

The Texas Republican, in an exclusive interview with CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash in San Antonio, was unapologetic for fighting to defund President Obama’s health care law in the face of outsized odds, saying he doesn’t work for the “party bosses” in Washington.FULL POST

(CNN) - The partial government shutdown ended three days ago, but America's veterans may continue to feel its effects for some time.

Throughout the 16-day shutdown, efforts to clear the Department of Veterans Affairs' backlog of veterans' disabilities claims stalled, according to a department official. This delay has created concern about Secretary Eric Shinseki's ability to keep his pledge to end all backlogged claims–those older than 125 days–by 2015, the official said.FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - Rep. Randy Neugebauer, a Texas Republican who berated a U.S. Park Service ranger at the then-barricaded World War II Memorial during the partial government shutdown, sent a letter of apology to the director of the National Park Service.

Neugebauer's office said he reached out soon after the October 2 incident to get the ranger's contact information to apologize in person, but they did not hear back from the Park Service until this week due to the shutdown.FULL POST

(CNN) - Tea party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz isn't ruling anything in our out in his continued fight against Obamacare, including efforts to force another government shutdown, an aide to the lawmaker has told CNN's Dana Bash.

It was Cruz's ultimately futile attempt in the Senate to tie renewed federal spending to defunding the health care law championed by President Barack Obama that helped trigger the two-week shutdown.FULL POST